"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."
What does man gain from all his labour at which he toils under the sun?
Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

God Debate: Sam Harris vs. Rick Warren

The God DebateAt the Summit: On a cloudy California day, the atheist Sam Harris sat down with the Christian pastor Rick Warren to hash out Life's Biggest Question—Is God real?

Well having read the whole thing I'm rather impressed, Rick manages to do rather well. Personally much of what he says seems a lot less confrontational than the other chap, though I certainly don't agree with some of what he says regarding his views on certain aspects of Christianity. Any way here are a couple of interesting/amusing bits from the article, and I highly recommend you have a read of it!

WARREN: I say I accept that by faith. And I think it's intellectually dishonest for you to say you have proof that it didn't happen. Here's the difference between you and me. I am open to the possibility that I am wrong in certain areas, and you are not.

HARRIS: Oh, I am absolutely open to that.

WARREN: So you are open to the possibility that you might be wrong about Jesus?

HARRIS: And Zeus. Absolutely.

WARREN: And what are you doing to study that?

HARRIS: I consider it such a low-probability event that I—

WARREN: A low probability? When there are 96 percent believers in the world? So is everybody else an idiot?

I wish he'd let the chap finish that statement, it would have been more interesting than the "idiot" charge.

Another Section:

So, parse that. God gave you an immigration attorney, but God killed a little girl.WARREN: Well, I do believe in the goodness of God, and I do believe that he knows better than I do. God sometimes says yes, God sometimes says no and God sometimes says wait. I've had to learn the difference between no and not yet. The issue here really does come down to surrender. A lot of atheists hide behind rationalism; when you start probing, you find their reactions are quite emotional. In fact, I've never met an atheist who wasn't angry.